Guilt : Psychological Burden?

One of the feelings that we can't simply deny is guilt. It stucks in your head and heart endlessly. It haunts you everywhere and every time.  

"I could've done better." 

"I could've change things."

"Why didn't I do things differently before?" 

"Why am I so stupid until I let this thing happen?" 

A question we should ask ourselves : No matter how big your guilt is, does it change a thing? 

Feeling guilty is a normal thing. It's a good thing actually, because you realise your own mistakes and you have the thought of changing it. It gives you further motivations to better things up in your life ahead. It gives you the need to be better so you don't have to experience bad thing twice. 

But what happened when guilt turns into an unnecessary psychological burden?

One of the toughest form of guilt is the guilt towards yourself. You can be your own best friend or worst enemy. When you make a mistake towards somebody else, you come to that person and ask for an apology. Their reaction next would tell you whether they forgive you or not. But how do we say sorry to ourselves?

I noticed recently that not only me, but many others take responsibilities on things that they shouldn't.

"I don't blame anyone. I did this to myself. It's my fault. Everything is my fault." 

Those words have stuck in my head for as long as I can remember. I beat myself up for every single problem I faced with others. I felt like I was the center of the problem and if I didn't do things, those problems won't come up.

In my own experience, I cared about everyone I know so much that I sincerely wished and wanted the best for them, sometimes more than for myself. I was also hurt when they got into trouble, because I felt responsible for not being able to prevent them from the horrible things that occurred.

It took me a while to realise that we can't control everything and everyone. You have no responsibility to control a person's behaviour and actions. Not every problem starts from you. Not every broken relationship is your fault. Not every person you love wanted to be cared.

It's not your responsibility to carry the weight of the world on your shoulder. 

Then, what?  

I know it's not as easy as saying or writing it. But it is the only solution. 

Beating yourself up won't solve a thing. It won't change what has happened. It only causes more problems because you can loose faith in yourself, shut yourself from the outside world, or even ended up in depression. 

Accept that mistakes happened. Problems surfaced. People get into troubles. We're humans, not God, we can't control every single thing that happened. Yes, we can prevent terrible things to happen in our life, but that's pretty much it. 

You tried, tried, and tried. And that is enough. 

Let it go and move on. One mistake shall not stop you and define who you are. Especially others mistake. Move on and think about yourself more. Caring about yourself and your feelings more won't make you an evil person. 

Guilt is an unavoidable feeling, yet we can control that guilt and prevent it from affecting our life and our relationship towards others. 

Here's a little piece of advice :